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[summeroffire]

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What Can I Do For Climate?

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1. Inform yourself

2. Become politically active

3. Transform your own life

4. Spread the word

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1. Inform yourself - Reading up on climate can be very difficult because the news is so grim, and it can be very upsetting. I do most of my reading focused on possible solutions. I try to know the basics of the issue as well, but I am aware of not pushing my boundaries. Upsetting yourself is not the goal. Knowledge is the foundation that leads to the other steps.

2. Become politically active - Some options:

1) Volunteer for and/or donate to campaigns of candidates who will support climate legislation. As unexciting as it is to support politicians who keep on disappointing, and to wade into electoral politics in general, these are the folks who will actually vote on legislation. Just the effort of replacing any Republican with almost any Democrat is worth doing, even if it makes one sigh. (Sorry, this is going to be US-centric.) Volunteering can include canvassing, phone banking, writing letters, attending campaign rallies and events. Act locally, but if you’re not sure where to start, Swing Left tracks the most significant US races.

2) Go to protests. Showing up is one of the most significant things we can do.

3) Join a climate activism group, like Extinction Rebellion, the Sunrise Movement, Fridays for Future, and participate in their events. If there is nothing near you, there are some things you can participate in online. Check their websites. Other groups you can help: 350, Rainforest Action Network, NRDC, Stop Line 3, Oxfam, stand.earth, League of Conservation Voters…  Use these organizations to choose actions to take (from signing petitions to sending letters to politicians to becoming an organizer). They have many to choose from. You don’t have to re-invent the wheel.

4) Avoid burnout or guilt. Do what you can, when you can. It’s okay if you can’t. It’s not all on you.

3. Transform your own life - Transforming consumption habits among the world’s more-affluent is necessary to reduce emissions. Collectively, our impact on heating the climate is huge. (People who make $38,000 a year and up are the 10% who contribute 50% of global emissions.) Each individual effort to reduce is so tiny it’s insignificant, but it’s part of a bigger whole that needs to happen. But again, you can only do what you can, and the choices involved are complicated. It’s okay if you can’t. It’s not all on you. (The super-rich are the ones who really need to be doing this, because their contribution to GHG emissions goes hand-in-hand with their wealth.)

These are the most impactful actions, adapted from various sources. “If possible” is implied in all of these:

1) Live car-free. Walk, bike, use public transportation. If buying a car, buy electric or used, and drive less. (”Used” because the significant emissions of manufacturing a car can be avoided by driving an existing car.)

2) Take no more than one short flight every three years and one long flight every eight years.

3) Switch electricity provider to one that provides solar or wind energy. More challenging: also convert your house to using only electricity (no natural gas) and install a heat pump.

4) Switch to a vegan diet or greatly reduce meat – especially beef – and dairy consumption.

5) Buy no more than three new items of clothing a year. Avoid buying newly manufactured things whenever possible. Use what you already have for seven years or longer. A big chunk of consumer emissions are embedded in the things that we buy.

4. Spread the word - This may be the most important and possibly the hardest. Do what you can. Avoid heated and probably pointless arguments. As a general rule, say your piece and then let it go, without expecting to change anyone’s mind right in that moment. I try to focus on talking about solutions, which many people surprisingly don’t know. And use your piece of the internet, write letters to the editor, comment on articles, etc.

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I made this because I keep seeing all these almost-cheerful, lighthearted, borderline-insulting listicles in response to news about the Climate Crisis treating it like it's just a temporary heatwave that you can totally cope with with these few neat tricks! Dear lord, this is like the Nuclear Bomb drills my mom had to go through as a little girl in the 50s and 60s where they had to hide under their desks, as if that would remotely protect them in any way. THIS IS ALL REALLY BAD AND YOU CAN'T HANDLE CLIMATE HEATING JUST BY OPENING THE WINDOW AT NIGHT, DAMMIT.

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𝖳𝗁𝖾 𝖾𝗇𝗍𝗋𝖺𝗇𝖼𝖾 𝗍𝗈 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗀𝖺𝗋𝖽𝖾𝗇 𝖻𝗒 𝖫𝗂𝗇𝖽𝗌𝖺𝗒 𝖱𝖾𝗇𝗍𝗈𝗇

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Ayup. Millenial here, can confirm

We live at a time when anyone over the age of, say, 20 who has a functional long term memory can tell you it's more than unfortunate weather; it's observable climate change year on year.

"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command"

-George Orwell, 1984

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Yeesh.

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I don't want this meme to be true, and yet...

every year I post this meme and every year people get more mad at me than they did the previous year

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Make it make sense

To be clear -- I am a capitalist. I believe companies should make money.

This level of profit is theft.

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Please share this video beyond Tumblr, too.

We've shared links to plenty of evidence documenting all this before.

But the human brain is a funny thing. Humans haven't spent most of their time on this planet learning and sharing knowledge via the careful measuring, collection and evaluation of facts and evidence. What we need is a story.

The above video tells the story, plain and simple. Some people will tune it out: it's no fun hearing you've been lied to. But for others, hopefully, it'll be an eye-opener.

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We should all be conscious of seeking ways to experience and express our climate emotions in community, rather than isolation.

The climate crisis will be solved similarly: in community, not in isolation.

-qbv

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And Republicans are using that too....they're gonna use "plausible" deniability and gaslighting and wink-wink-nudge-nudging to make anyone calling them fascists sound hysterical, when all the while they'll be working on their goosestep.

The fact that corporate media will never frame current Republican [christo]fascism in America accordingly is very dangerous.

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If we're going to save America and the rest of the world from relentless and deadly heat, wildfires, flooding, and hurricanes, we need to get off of fossil fuels NOW.

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For years, climate-concerned people have assiduously used some sort of climate footprint “calculator” to figure out how many tons of carbon dioxide they emit annually because of their lifestyle; and, accordingly, how much blame they shoulder personally for climate change. What they probably don’t know is that the idea of a carbon footprint calculator was first invented by the geniuses at British Petroleum — not to encourage conservation, but to focus consumers’ attention on their own emissions and distract their attention from the incomparably greater emissions of the industry itself.

Yet asking how you, individually, can calculate and reduce your carbon footprint is very much asking the wrong question. I don’t want to know what I can do to reduce my estimated 0.00000005 percent of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. I want to know what Big Oil is going to do to phase out the 73 percent of greenhouse gas emissions that they empower — which was 37,190,000,000 metric tons of CO2 in 2021. Of course, the fossil fuel industry would rather send me nosing into the compost in my backyard, than sniffing under the closed doors of political dealmaking that props up the hegemony of the fossil fuel economy.

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I'm gonna die mad about the fact that I will now have to regularly consider air quality for something as casual as going out for a walk.